This was not a study about rendering details, but about establishing big shapes, proportions, light and dark patterns. I used Transparent Red Iron Oxide (TRIO) as my single color pigment and a mixture of French Ultramarine Blue and TRIO to paint my darks.

Problems:

Painting on portrait smooth linen is great, however, if your pigment out of the tube is soaked with medium (walnut oil in my case) or you add to much medium, you will find that your brush strokes quickly get out of control. If your pigment out of the tube is too oily, just mixed a little bit of Gamblin’s Cold Wax Medium; it reduces the oiliness and consequently the glossiness of your painting. Personally, I prefer to have a matt look to my underpaintings.

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Oil figure sketch on 12 x 16 oil primed linen canvas. This was my first time painting on linen and I have to say, it was incredible! It was just the right texture and smoothness that I wanted. Erasing on oil primed surfaces is a dream, compared to the acrylic primed canvases that I have used in the past for sketches. The acrylic primed canvases soaks up the oil, thus making it difficult for making corrections. I have tried Arches Oil Paper for doing sketches, but they are even worse than acrylic primed canvases. Once the pigment is laid down, there is just no removing it, unless you cover it up with another pigment, which is fine if you are sketching with multiple pigments.

However, oil primed linen are expensive! I have decided, however, to use one oil primed linen canvas solely for the purpose of doing sketches. I will simply sketch, take a picture, and erase when I am done. I plan to get a lot of mileage out of it.